The Contract

Ulf had survived the annoyance of his father that within hours of his demobilisation he should need to take a weekend with the FDJ out of Berlin. His mother had sat in the kitchen while the father and boy had conducted their whispered argument in the hallway.

He wondered how soon they would hear of his escape. Within a day perhaps, not more than two, after the crossing. The little room where they spent their evenings in front of the television and the electric fire would be crowded with the men of the Schutzpolizei. Submission from his father, terror from his mother, and they never in trouble before. And when his father professed his surprise, astonishment at the action of his son, would the policemen believe him? And if they did not believe him. ..? Emotion trapped in Ulf s throat, tears caught in his eyes. He did not want to harm them, not his father or mother. They had done nothing to deserve the retribution of the Party.

Jutte's forehead nuzzled against his chin. 'You have found the place?'

'There is a place where it can be done.'

'Where we can cross?'

'Where it's possible, yes.'

' I will not be frightened, not with you.'

For more than 3 hours Otto Guttmann had sat in the small sitting room in the cottage of the pastor beside the Dom. He had come alone, and Erica had gone to walk in the Pionier-park and had said that she would support his decision, she would follow his choice. The burden was on his back, laid at his door, and one friend to turn to.

Otto Guttmann told the pastor of his work at Padolsk. He went over in detail the events as he had known them surrounding the drowning of his son. He had relived the visit to Wernigerode and the passing of the photographs which he showed to his friend. He talked in a voice stumbling with pain of the sight of Willi from the footbridge over the railway. He recalled the words of the Englishman who had come to his hotel room.

What should he do? he asked. Where lay his loyalty?

The pastor had not interrupted. Only after the housekeeper had carried in on a tray a plate of cold meats and a pot of tea was the monologue exhausted.

He was a small spare man, the pastor. The gestures of his hands as he spoke were quick, decisive. His voice was lulling, persuasive. He had known humiliation and rejection, he had worked all his adult life in the community of Magdeburg. He showed no surprise that his friend had visited him, only an acceptance of the enormity of the option. The words he used were thoughtfully chosen.

'You are a scientist, Otto, a manufacturer of terrible weapons of warfare. I am a pacifist, I have been so ever since the bombers came to our city and 16,000 persons were slaughtered in the holocaust and the firestorm. If you stand before me as a scientist and ask me where your duties lie, then I cannot help you, I offer no advice.'

The cup in Otto Guttmann's hand trembled, tea slopped to his trouser leg.

'… But you are, too, a Christian, you are a believer, and there we are joined. As a Christian your blood runs as freely as mine, as if we were brothers. We know what it is to worship alone, we have the comradeship that comes from the mocking of an atheist society, we have suffered the nobility of hardship for our beliefs. In this country it is an act of courage to attend public worship. You remember when the pastor from Zeitz, you remember the name of Brusewitz, you remember when he immolated himself on the steps of his church, poured petrol over himself and took a match, to draw attention to the harassment of young Christians in our society, you remember him? They called him an idiot and said that he was deranged. And after his death, we who were his fellow Christians, we debated amongst ourselves as to whether we had compromised too far with the Party. To me, Brusewitz is as near a saint as we will find in our time in this place. He made the supreme sacrifice in the flames, the sacrifice of Christ. His example was one of heroic faith, and his death demands that we of the church must stay and fight for his ideals, we cannot abandon our people. I speak as a cleric. I could not go, my fight is here.'

The pastor poured more tea, took another slice of meat to his plate and cut it with neat and precise movements.

'You do not have those chains on you, Otto. Neither you, nor your daughter. You are free to go. There is no shame in withdrawing from persecution, no disgrace. Your time runs quickly, you have deserved a latter peace. You should go to the comfort of your family. You have the right to find your happiness. There is no duty that obliges you to remain.'

They went together from the pastor's room and into the high, vaulted cathedral, past the tombs topped by stone carved knights, past the shrapnel pocked figure of Christ, past the place where the leaking roof threw water down on the flagstones. They went to the front line of chairs arrayed in front of the altar. For several minutes they prayed in silence.

Outside in the sunshine they shook hands.